season does deserve to be celebrated as a festival; -our hearts may well rejoice and be glad. But, are they so? and, if not, why are they not so? I am afraid, that if we have thought of this passage of Scripture, which I have been attempting now to explain, our consciences will give us the answer too plainly. It is, in short, because we do not yet feel that we are God's sons; we do not heartily call him, Father; we are still living with the spirit of slaves under a master, or that of children in the rudiments of learning under a teacher; we obey from fear, and not from love. Alas! how little we seem to know or to feel the privileges which Christ has earned for us! How little do we go to God in the spirit of sons, whose sins are already forgiven, whose evil natures are already kindled by a better Spirit, who are born again, and not born only into a new life, but who have lived and grown on in it! Therefore, these Christian festivals are valued, not for themselves, not for the spiritual blessings which they record, but for the earthly pleasures which accompany them; therefore that holy communion, to which Christ this day invites us, is regarded by some with fear, by others with dislike, by some with reverence, but by none, perhaps, with that full delight and thankfulness which befits Christ's redeemed. And what is the way to gain that delight?—or, how shall we really gain the spirit

of sons, and cry in sincerity to God, Abba, Father? Why is it, that, although Christ has died, yea, rather has risen again, we still feel as though he had not died, and were not risen;-as though we were still unforgiven and unredeemed? One answer will serve, I am afraid, for all: we are yet in our sins-our faith is less than a grain of mustard seed. We cannot think that God has forgiven our sins, because we feel that our own hearts have not renounced them :-we cannot feel as God's redeemed children, because our hearts still cling to that which our Father cannot love. This is unbelief, in the Scripture sense of the term; it is truly an evil heart of unbelief, and not an ignorant understanding: we do not believe in Christ our Redeemer, because we will not be redeemed from our sins. It is still as when he wept over Jerusalem: he would have gathered her children together, but they would not; he would be our Saviour-would lead us to God as sons-would make us heirs of eternal bliss,—but we will not. Alas! for that evil and rebellious will, which still loves darkness and slavery, rather than light and freedom! But, my brethren, if your hearts answer to the truth of what I have been saying, if neither to you nor to me this season of Christmas is so welcome, that holy communion so joyous, as it ought to be,—if you know, as I do, that our service to God is not paid with a

true childlike spirit, that we are still in bondage under the rudiments of the world,-do we not know what is the weapon with which we may gain our deliverance? In that beautiful story which we have all known and loved from our childhood, the Pilgrim, Christian, when well nigh overpowered by the enemies of his soul in the valley of the shadow of death, bethinks him of the weapon, all-prayer, and by the aid of that weapon is victorious. It is a true parable;-all-prayer is our best weapon, and one which is sure to conquer, if it be heartily and perseveringly used. If we pray and do not faint in our prayers,-if we earnestly beg of God for Christ's sake to give us a better mind, to turn us from our sins with all our heart, to believe indeed that Christ has redeemed us, we shall find, (for God's promise is our warrant,) that we shall gain the spirit that we desire; that we shall be no more slaves but sons; and if sons, then heirs of God through Jesus Christ.

SERMON XXXI.

(PREACHED JANUARY, 1831.)

GENESIS, i. 31.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

THE happiest man alive, he who in his own person and particular fortune has met with the fewest troubles, cannot seriously think upon these words without finding in them, indeed, matter for a sermon. No man, however much of happiness he may himself have tasted, can have lived so out of the world, and with his eyes and ears so closed to every thing passing around him, as to fancy, for an instant, that if God were now to look upon every thing that he had made, he could say that it was very good. Much more, then, would men in general, who had tasted a mixed draught of good and evil in life; and, above all, that numerous class of persons with whom the evil has far outweighed the good,-much more would these be

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struck with the words of the text, and think how little the state of the world, as it had presented itself to their observation, agreed with that prevailing character of goodness which God found in all his works, when he first rested to behold the things which he had made.

"God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." He saw the natural world, and the moral world, and found that both alike were good. On the one hand, there were the sun, the moon, and the stars; the earth, and the sea; all plants and trees which grow upon the earth; all living creatures, whether insects, fishes, birds, or beasts, by which it is inhabited: and on the other hand, there was man, newly created after God's image. All the other works of creation, without disorder, and without failure, obeyed the laws of their Maker; and man, also, after his measure, rendered a more worthy obedience, because it was the obedience of a reasonable soul and of a willing spirit.

Let us go on for about sixteen hundred years from the time when all had been declared thus good and happy. We shall then find the sun no longer giving his light, the earth and the sea no longer keeping their appointed bounds, the plants and trees no more yielding their fruits and flowers, the living creatures no more in their appointed order, glorifying God by the wonderful varieties